Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Trolls in my setting originally come from an area that was transformed into an irradiated wasteland. The combination of high background radiation and the trolls' regenerative healing powers have created a slightly smaller but significantly more dangerous species that can rapidly mutate. Now they have spread out across the continent through underground cave networks and adapted to each new environment in turn. They are kept well away from the great cities, and as a whole still fear the light of the sun. You'll see them on all of my terrain-based random encounter tables with a note about any automatic mutations they may have.

The 2nd
Edition AD&D Monstrous Compendium Annual Vol. 4 is probably
my least favorite of the series, but it contains an entry called
“Troll Mutate” (pg. 84) that always seemed just shy of great.
Mutating trolls are way more fun than regular trolls. Why even use
regular trolls? Sadly, not only is the mutation table in the book
merely a 1d12, it only has TEN? entries.

Whut? We have Jon Pickens to thank for this.

I have expanded that weak
list to one hundred entries, specific to these mutant trolls, but
potentially useful as a general Biological Mutation table. The
trolls in the MCA4 at half
size were too small, I've made them one quarter smaller than normal
(i.e. 6 HD in 5e). Also, I prefer the mutations to begin after
twenty HP are regained, and that they are created fully formed and
functional. It's also more fun to fight a monster that mutates
during the course of a battle and the MCA4
trolls don't really achieve that the way they're written.

Beyond the ability
of normal trolls severed body parts to keep moving and attacking,
mutant trolls possess another power. If multiple trolls are reduced
to zero HP (without using fire or acid) in the same area and allowed
to regenerate, they may fuse together into a huge Troll Abomination,
adding their HD together and increasing their combined strength and
attacks.

You can use the
table as a single d100 or two separate d50 lists. The first fifty
contains all the “no effect”, low effect, and negative effect
results (among some good ones), while the second fifty are all good
rolls except for 00. Rolling for the first mutation with d50 and
each subsequent one with d100 works. Some of the entries have a
second, greater effect to use if duplicates are rolled.

You can randomize
mutation placement, particularly if the obvious location gets
crowded, by using a “body die” or rolling 1d12: 1 Full Body, 2
Head, 3 Stomach, 4 Chest, 5 Left Arm, 6 Left Hand, 7 Left Leg,
8 Left Foot, 9 Right Arm, 10 Right Hand, 11 Right Leg, 12 Right
Foot.

96 Regeneration
Factor Triples – recovers three times as many HP per round.

97 Mentally
Dominates Other Trolls – able to psychically control other
trolls up to intelligence x10 feet away.

98 PhysicallyAbsorbsOtherTrolls – able to undergo fusion
with other trolls on contact.

99 EvolutionaryLeap – progress further on the path of the Über Troll, +2
to all abilities.

00 Collapse into
Green Slime – troll's body loses cohesion and decomposes into a
like amount of green slime.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - In case you are interested in the MCA4 Troll Mutate entry in its fully wonky glory. The poor little things don't seem to mutate meaningfully unless you beat on them then run off and do something else for a day. Which in my experience is not how players deal with trolls. The queen troll thing is fine, if played, but I prefer sexless trolls that reproduce through hormone triggered fits of intra-species violence: limbs are severed and rather than reconnecting are compelled to grow into troll-lets. But I also like trolls as cancer, trolls as virus, and the above parasitic troll spawn (Suriname Toad lifecycle) thing.

Wednesday, August 8, 2018

A table of one hundred starting items for character creation or searching bodies. Each item is worth 1d6 x 10gp to an appropriately interested person, and invaluable to clever problem solvers. Heavily influenced by Against the Wicked City's "When All You Have is a Hammer", but designed for a more primal campaign with less technological sophistication.
This post sent me down a lot of rabbit holes where I tried to justify thoughts like "Wait, where do plums grow? What's in a tinderbox really? What is the oldest recorded music notation?" Now that I've purged myself of this latest dalliance I can return to the megadungeon and encounter table work from earlier. Till then, enjoy.